Creation groans and so do I - reflections from an Iranian believer

For days now my body has been tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing again. Contractions come, pass, and return. Time has lost its usual edges. I am waiting, but not passively. My body is doing something I cannot hurry or manage.

Between contractions, my mind keeps returning to words in Romans chapter eight. Not because I am trying to interpret this moment, but because Scripture sometimes gives language to things we would otherwise endure in silence. Paul speaks of creation groaning as in the pains of childbirth. Not poetic groaning. Physical groaning. Unchosen, involuntary, exhausting.

I am exhausted.